U.S.-Turkish relations are enjoying a somewhat warmer moment, following the resolution of the crisis over American pastor Andrew Brunson and the recent dialogue to resolve differences over U.S. cooperation with the mainly Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia in northern Syria.

The differences between Washington and Ankara on this issue—and over Syria—are no doubt problematic. At the same time, it is important to recognize that Turkish-Russian relations are far from a real strategic partnership. Hence, there is a pragmatic solution that Washington can pursue to resolve the impasse over the S-400s.

The shadow of history and geopolitical divergences

The most recent Russia-Turkey rapprochement stems mostly from the challenges that instability in Syria creates for Turkish national security. Yet, despite current efforts in Ankara to deepen Russian-Turkish relations and overlook disagreements, Russia has traditionally been a geopolitical rival for Turkey. The annexation of Crimea shifted the naval balance in the Black Sea to Turkey’s disadvantage, a fact that Russia’s top general Valery Gerasimov touted in 2016. Russia’s latest incident in the Kerch Strait will further consolidate Russian naval primacy in the Black Sea.

Turkey’s often unspoken (or overlooked) geopolitical rivalry with Russia is likely one of the main reasons why Ankara lists Ukraine, Georgia, and Azerbaijan as strategic partners, while Russia is referred to just as a major trade partner.

Russian-Turkish cooperation in Syria

The Syrian conflict brought the two sides into a confrontation when Turkey shot down a Russian warplane in November 2015 and Russia responded by imposing harsh economic sanctions on Turkey. Subsequently, both sides were able to patch up their differences and embarked on a process of rapprochement, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan issuing a personal letter of regret for the incident to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Thanks to Russian consent, the Turkish military was able to conduct two cross-border operations in Syria: Operation Euphrates Shield against ISIS, and Operation Olive Branch against the Kurdish YPG—the armed wing of the Kurdish political party Democratic Union Party (PYD) in Syria—in the Afrin region of northwestern Syria.

In 2015 and 2016—when terrorist attacks originating from Syria were occurring inside Turkey and the United States remained aloof to Turkey’s calls for a buffer zone in northern Syria—Russia emerged as Ankara’s only viable partner. The close cooperation with Turkey has played into Russia’s geopolitical goal of trying to peel Turkey away from NATO. Furthermore, this cooperation also helped Russia alleviate some of the military burden of supporting the Bashar al-Assad regime by getting Turkey to convince the moderate opposition to support a ceasefire and come to the negotiation table for a long-term solution.

Since January 2017, the two have coordinated 11 rounds of peace talks in Astana, Kazakhstan, together with Iran. In September, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan convinced President Vladimir Putin to support an extended ceasefire and construction of a demilitarized zone in the northwestern province of Idlib to preempt an onslaught by Syrian regime forces into the last opposition-held area. In so doing, regional geopolitical disagreements were conveniently sidelined. In the same vein, it is notable that Ankara has not joined Western sanctions on Russia and shied away from openly criticizing Russia over the recent Kerch Strait incident.

Turkey shares a long border with Syria and benefits from its current cooperation with Russia. However, in the long run, Putin and Erdoğan have divergent interests in Syria. Most importantly, Russia continues to back the Syrian Kurds and has hosted a PYD office in Moscow since early 2016 (despite its tacit approval of Turkey’s Afrin operation). Ankara considers the PYD an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), an organization that has been fighting the Turkish state since the early 1980s and which Turkey, the United States, and NATO consider a terrorist organization. Moscow wants the PYD to be included in the negotiations to achieve a sustainable peace in Syria. So far, Turkey has resisted PYD’s participation in the “constitutional committee” critical to advancing a political settlement in Syria, a problem that U.N. special envoy Staffan de Mistura has acknowledged.

Second, it is unclear for how long Russia will tolerate the presence of Turkish troops in Syria. Putin has on various occasions clearly stated that he wants all foreign forces to eventually leave Syria, especially those without the invitation of the Syrian government. Third, the ceasefire over Idlib is very fragile, and it would hardly be surprising to see a green light from Moscow allowing regime forces and Iran-backed militias to launch an Idlib campaign—especially if Turkey fails to rein in extremist groups defined as terrorists by the Astana process. If Idlib turns into the next battlefield in Syria, Turkey risks facing another refugee crisis with dire humanitarian consequences and potential threats to Turkey’s stability and national security.

Finally, Ankara and Moscow will continue to disagree over the future of Syrian President Assad. Unlike Putin, Erdoğan continues to entertain the idea of a future Syria without Assad.

Don’t push Turkey away

A recent public opinion survey in Turkey shows that Turks do not see Russia as a friend, but do think Turkey and Russia can cooperate in international issues. Anti-Americanism, on the other hand, is on the rise and many see the United States as threatening to Turkey.

This dampens the prospects for a meaningful rapprochement between the United States and Turkey. On the Turkish side, a constant drumbeat fed to the public about, as one analyst put it, “exiting the West” further aggravates the relationship. Rampant anti-Americanism, often encouraged by the government itself, culminates in uncritical calls for closer relations with Russia. But despite the government’s domestic narrative—including accusations that NATO is a terrorist organization that threatens Turkey—Ankara has given no sign that it will break away from the trans-Atlantic alliance. Strikingly, Erdoğan has also stopped calling on Putin to help Turkey join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in the place of the EU. Instead, the sheer reality that Turkey still needs the West—as noted by one former ambassador and deputy undersecretary of the Turkish ministry of foreign affairs—keeps Turkey reliant on NATO.

Turkey is stuck with having to buy S-400s out of the momentum built into Russian-Turkish rapprochement. But the move will in fact harm Turkey’s national security interests, since the full deployment and operationalization of the missiles would seriously undermine Turkey’s relationship with the United States and NATO. In short, Turkey cannot afford to sleepwalk out of the trans-Atlantic alliance for the sake of S-400s.

It’s important to see that while the S-400 purchase is significant, it is extremely unlikely to lead Turkey to a strategic switch toward Russia and away from the West. The United States must respond with that in mind, and should not react in a way that inadvertently pushes Turkey away from the trans-Atlantic alliance. That would only serve Russia’s interests, making it easier for Russia to pursue its geopolitical ambitions from the Baltic to the Black Sea and in the Middle East. Therefore, the issue of sanctioning Turkey and excluding it from the F-35 program should be approached cautiously. Instead, Washington, Ankara, and their NATO partners should double their efforts to find a pragmatic solution to the purchase of Russian S-400s. This could, for example, involve limiting the operationalization of missiles in a manner that does not jeopardize NATO member countries’ immediate security concerns, such as digital espionage and cyber hacking, rather than demanding at this late stage an outright cancellation of the purchase. Alternatively, the United States could revisit the possibility of selling Patriot surface-to-air missiles to Turkey that satisfies the latter’s long-standing demands on pricing and technology transfer. Given that conflict persists in the Middle East–with Iran, Syria, and others equipped with offensive missile capabilities—Turkey’s demands for a missile defense system will persist, too.

With this approach, two main goals can be achieved: Russia and Turkey can continue their pragmatic cooperation in Syria to promote relative calm and stability there, and Turkey’s missile purchase can be managed such that it doesn’t result in more fundamental problems in the trans-Atlantic alliance.

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By Kemal Kirişci, Seçkin Köstem
U.S.-Turkish relations are enjoying a somewhat warmer moment, following the resolution of the crisis over American pastor Andrew Brunson and the recent dialogue to resolve differences over U.S. cooperation with the mainly Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia in northern Syria.
However, Ankara’s commitment to purchase S-400 surface-to-air missiles from Russia presents a big challenge with important geopolitical implications. Among other problems, the plan could get Turkey sanctioned and removed from the U.S.-led program to provide F-35 aircraft. Some experts have recently argued that Turkey is not a valuable strategic partner and that President Trump should bury the U.S.-Turkish alliance. At a moment when the relationship remains fragile, what could be done to avert yet another crisis in bilateral relations now that Turkey has decided to buy the S-400 missiles?
The differences between Washington and Ankara on this issue—and over Syria—are no doubt problematic. At the same time, it is important to recognize that Turkish-Russian relations are far from a real strategic partnership. Hence, there is a pragmatic solution that Washington can pursue to resolve the impasse over the S-400s.
The shadow of history and geopolitical divergences
The most recent Russia-Turkey rapprochement stems mostly from the challenges that instability in Syria creates for Turkish national security. Yet, despite current efforts in Ankara to deepen Russian-Turkish relations and overlook disagreements, Russia has traditionally been a geopolitical rival for Turkey. The annexation of Crimea shifted the naval balance in the Black Sea to Turkey’s disadvantage, a fact that Russia’s top general Valery Gerasimov touted in 2016. Russia’s latest incident in the Kerch Strait will further consolidate Russian naval primacy in the Black Sea.
Turkey’s often unspoken (or overlooked) geopolitical rivalry with Russia is likely one of the main reasons why Ankara lists Ukraine, Georgia, and Azerbaijan as strategic partners, while Russia is referred to just as a major trade partner.
Russian-Turkish cooperation in Syria
The Syrian conflict brought the two sides into a confrontation when Turkey shot down a Russian warplane in November 2015 and Russia responded by imposing harsh economic sanctions on Turkey. Subsequently, both sides were able to patch up their differences and embarked on a process of rapprochement, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan issuing a personal letter of regret for the incident to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Thanks to Russian consent, the Turkish military was able to conduct two cross-border operations in Syria: Operation Euphrates Shield against ISIS, and Operation Olive Branch against the Kurdish YPG—the armed wing of the Kurdish political party Democratic Union Party (PYD) in Syria—in the Afrin region of northwestern Syria.
In 2015 and 2016—when terrorist attacks originating from Syria were occurring inside Turkey and the United States remained aloof to Turkey's calls for a buffer zone in northern Syria—Russia emerged as Ankara’s only viable partner. The close cooperation with Turkey has played into Russia’s geopolitical goal of trying to peel Turkey away from NATO. Furthermore, this cooperation also helped Russia alleviate some of the military burden of supporting the Bashar al-Assad regime by getting Turkey to convince the moderate opposition to support a ceasefire and come to the negotiation table for a long-term solution.
Since January 2017, the two have coordinated 11 rounds of peace talks in Astana, Kazakhstan, together with Iran. In September, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan convinced President Vladimir Putin to support an extended ceasefire and construction of a demilitarized zone in the northwestern province of Idlib to preempt an onslaught ... By Kemal Kirişci, Seçkin Köstem
U.S.-Turkish relations are enjoying a somewhat warmer moment, following the resolution of the crisis over American pastor Andrew Brunson and the recent dialogue to resolve differences over U.https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2018/12/13/religious-soft-power-in-the-south-caucasus-the-influence-of-iran-and-turkey/Religious soft power in the South Caucasus: The influence of Iran and Turkeyhttp://webfeeds.brookings.edu/~/585635269/0/brookingsrss/topics/turkey~Religious-soft-power-in-the-South-Caucasus-The-influence-of-Iran-and-Turkey/
Thu, 13 Dec 2018 16:45:21 +0000https://www.brookings.edu/?p=552705

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By Ansgar Jödicke

In 2017, Mehran Kamrava published “The Great Game in West Asia,” a volume about Iranian and Turkish influence in the South Caucasus. Kamrava’s thesis is that Iran and Turkey have started a new geopolitical competition for influence in Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. However, the rivalry between Iran and Turkey is not new and the “power game” in the South Caucasus is not limited to these two middle powers. In fact, Iran and Turkey have been playing this game for years and the South Caucasus is still under strong influence from Russia. Nevertheless, Kamrava and the authors of the volume are right that the changing geopolitical situation has opened up new options for Iran and Turkey to influence this region.

How do these competing geopolitical influences work in the realm of religion? Iran’s and Turkey’s policies promote their respective official views of Shiism and Sunnism, and these religious components spill over into—and potentially become relevant for understanding—foreign policy. The target countries Azerbaijan and Georgia have inhabitants with the same religious affiliation as Iran and Turkey (Muslim majority and Muslim minority respectively), so it might make sense that these transnational religious affinities increase the chances for successful foreign policies. But do they? Does the religious factor make a growing Iranian or Turkish role attractive to target groups in the South Caucasus?

As Iran and Turkey do not by and large wield hard power in the South Caucasus, these policies fall largely under the category of “soft power”—although this concept originally was created in the context of liberal policies. Nevertheless, Iran’s and Turkey’s use of religion in the South Caucasus could be a reason for attractiveness depending on the country-specific geopolitical and historical situation. In what follows, I will argue that specific conditions such as the size of the target group are key to understand how religiously based soft power operates in the region.

In terms of geopolitics and international relations, the countries of the South Caucasus and their neighbors are highly interconnected, and this region has always been a sphere of influence for neighboring great powers. The two axes of alliances (Russia-Armenia-Iran and Turkey-Georgia-Azerbaijan) are related to the most relevant political and economic issues in the region: the disputed area of Nagorno Karabakh, the distribution of gas reserves in the Caspian Sea, gas pipelines to Europe, security politics, and trading agreements. Thus, neither the alliances nor the conflicts are directly related to religion. Predominantly Shiite Azerbaijan holds better relations with Georgia and Turkey whereas Shiite Iran cooperates best with Christian Armenia.

Iran for its part has supported Shiite groups in both Georgia and Azerbaijan. This support—with a peak in the late 1990s—has taken the form of financial help for religious communities, exchanges of clerics and students, stipends for studying in Iran, and funding for charity projects. In Azerbaijan—and particularly the south—Iran provided humanitarian aid during the height of the Nagorno Karabakh territorial dispute in the early 1990s and initiated Iranian broadcasting through the television channel Sahar TV. All these activities included religious components including, for example, the dissemination of religious literature.

Although the means Iran employed were largely the same in the two countries, the perception and results were completely different. In Georgia, the Shiite population is a minority mostly situated in the southeastern province of Kvemo Kartli. The Georgian government had initiated economic development programs in the region and worked to increase the numbers of students from Kvemo Kartli enrolled in Georgian universities. Thus, Iran’s approach became, in effect, an intervention in Georgia’s minority politics and the broader integration challenges of the Shiite community. Since Turkish universities also remained attractive for potential students, the two countries, in effect entered into competition over who could provide the more attractive educational and economic opportunities.

In contrast, Iranian support for Shiite groups in Azerbaijan operates according to a different logic. First, the target group is much larger, as Shiites are the majority in Azerbaijan. Since Azerbaijani Shiites were not well educated religiously, Iranian preachers attracted attention among young Shiites through an intellectually well-grounded style of religiosity. Although these preachers gained some popularity in a growing group of adherents, most researchers found that Iran only succeeded in influencing small portions of the population. Yet fears over the Iranian preachers’ potential reach alarmed secular political elites, who in turn created the influential narrative about dangerous “Iranian influence” that served to legitimize police action against certain Shiite groups and legal means against foreign religious preachers.

The Georgian government, observing the renewed emphasis on religion in the region, tried to counterbalance it with economic support programs. The Iranian activities in Georgia did not damage the bilateral relations whereas Azerbaijan’s bilateral relations with Iran remained precarious. Symbolic pan-Shiite solidarity between the countries’ leaders that masked significant tensions on the ground with respect to some Azerbaijani Shiite communities.

Interestingly, Iranian foreign policy uses religious promotion in other ways—primarily cultural policy—that go beyond the direct support of religious groups. This applies to bilateral relations between Iran and Armenia, where there are few Shiites. Nevertheless, Iran packages its religious outreach as a curious but benign form of cultural capital. Exhibitions, language courses, and other cultural activities have buttressed the political relationship for years.

Turkey’s inclusion of religion in foreign policy is different. In the 2000s, it benefited from the formal separation between the movement of Fethullah Gülen and the Turkish state’s directorate of religious affairs, or Diyanet. During this period, Turkish religious soft power in the Caucasus region was almost uniquely associated with the Gülen movement. Although the Diyanet supported the Sunni minority in Georgia’s Adjara region as well as some mosques and the Department of Religion at Baku State University in Azerbaijan, the Gülen movement was much more present and integrated throughout society as a modest form of pan-Turkism. Gülenist representatives in the region understood quite well how to emphasize their Turkish roots within other national contexts. Their schools attracted the children of both Georgians and Turkish diplomats or businesspersons. As the Gülen movement and the Turkish government were two separate institutions, Turkish policy was always able to balance religious soft power with its political interests in the two countries, allowing them to proceed in parallel.

The situation has changed dramatically since the rupture between Gülen and Erdoğan in 2013. Gülenist institutions in Azerbaijan have been closed down due to Turkish government pressure. Accordingly, Ankara will have to find a new balance between religious and political influence. Most experts expect a reduction of Turkish soft power in the region, noting that the Diyanet’s influence will not be embraced at the popular level in the same way that Gülenists had been in the past.

The success or failure of religious outreach strategies is a function of specific historical contingencies in target countries.

In short, the relevance of religion to soft power projection remains ambivalent. Religion can play a significant role in international relations as the basis of activities targeting and sometimes successfully influencing parts of a given national population. However, Turkey’s and Iran’s religious exports in the South Caucasus remain limited. Religion is certainly not the key to understanding the influence of these two powers in the South Caucasus. None of the bilateral relations concerned are fundamentally premised on religious grounds.

The analysis of religious soft power in these contexts gains most from looking at specific historical and geopolitical circumstances rather than by searching for universal patterns governing religion’s role in foreign policy. While Turkey’s or Iran’s religious policy might at some level be informed by diverging ideological and theological starting points, the success or failure of religious outreach strategies is a function of specific historical contingencies in target countries. Depending on the size of the targeted group, as we have seen above, the projection of religious soft power can become a significant factor in national security debates in one context while remaining a minor, even tangential aspect of policy towards minorities in others.

The fact that religious soft power exists as a tool in the foreign policy repertoire of some states does not mean that religion is something outside the political world or a force that somehow transcends geopolitical realities. Rather, the use of religious soft power by some states reflects a recognition of religion as deeply embedded in society and available as a resource for mobilization in certain bilateral relationships.

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By Ansgar Jödicke
In 2017, Mehran Kamrava published “The Great Game in West Asia,” a volume about Iranian and Turkish influence in the South Caucasus. Kamrava’s thesis is that Iran and Turkey have started a new geopolitical competition for influence in Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. However, the rivalry between Iran and Turkey is not new and the “power game” in the South Caucasus is not limited to these two middle powers. In fact, Iran and Turkey have been playing this game for years and the South Caucasus is still under strong influence from Russia. Nevertheless, Kamrava and the authors of the volume are right that the changing geopolitical situation has opened up new options for Iran and Turkey to influence this region.
How do these competing geopolitical influences work in the realm of religion? Iran’s and Turkey’s policies promote their respective official views of Shiism and Sunnism, and these religious components spill over into—and potentially become relevant for understanding—foreign policy. The target countries Azerbaijan and Georgia have inhabitants with the same religious affiliation as Iran and Turkey (Muslim majority and Muslim minority respectively), so it might make sense that these transnational religious affinities increase the chances for successful foreign policies. But do they? Does the religious factor make a growing Iranian or Turkish role attractive to target groups in the South Caucasus?
As Iran and Turkey do not by and large wield hard power in the South Caucasus, these policies fall largely under the category of “soft power”—although this concept originally was created in the context of liberal policies. Nevertheless, Iran’s and Turkey’s use of religion in the South Caucasus could be a reason for attractiveness depending on the country-specific geopolitical and historical situation. In what follows, I will argue that specific conditions such as the size of the target group are key to understand how religiously based soft power operates in the region.
In terms of geopolitics and international relations, the countries of the South Caucasus and their neighbors are highly interconnected, and this region has always been a sphere of influence for neighboring great powers. The two axes of alliances (Russia-Armenia-Iran and Turkey-Georgia-Azerbaijan) are related to the most relevant political and economic issues in the region: the disputed area of Nagorno Karabakh, the distribution of gas reserves in the Caspian Sea, gas pipelines to Europe, security politics, and trading agreements. Thus, neither the alliances nor the conflicts are directly related to religion. Predominantly Shiite Azerbaijan holds better relations with Georgia and Turkey whereas Shiite Iran cooperates best with Christian Armenia.
Iran for its part has supported Shiite groups in both Georgia and Azerbaijan. This support—with a peak in the late 1990s—has taken the form of financial help for religious communities, exchanges of clerics and students, stipends for studying in Iran, and funding for charity projects. In Azerbaijan—and particularly the south—Iran provided humanitarian aid during the height of the Nagorno Karabakh territorial dispute in the early 1990s and initiated Iranian broadcasting through the television channel Sahar TV. All these activities included religious components including, for example, the dissemination of religious literature.
Although the means Iran employed were largely the same in the two countries, the perception and results were completely different. In Georgia, the Shiite population is a minority mostly situated in the southeastern province of Kvemo Kartli. The Georgian government had initiated economic development programs in the region and worked to increase the numbers of students from Kvemo Kartli enrolled in Georgian universities. Thus, Iran’s approach ... By Ansgar Jödicke
In 2017, Mehran Kamrava published “The Great Game in West Asia,” a volume about Iranian and Turkish influence in the South Caucasus. Kamrava’s thesis is that Iran and Turkey have started a new geopolitical ... https://www.brookings.edu/media-mentions/20181128-bloomberg-bruce-riedel/20181128 Bloomberg Bruce Riedelhttp://webfeeds.brookings.edu/~/583852082/0/brookingsrss/topics/turkey~Bloomberg-Bruce-Riedel/
Wed, 28 Nov 2018 15:23:30 +0000https://www.brookings.edu/?post_type=media-mention&p=551285